Sundial Animation

One of this month's projects shows how to model a working sundial, and another one shows how to animate the shadows moving over the hour markers.

Here's the animation I made of my sundial, from 6 AM in the summer to 7 PM. This was a really fun project!

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See the First Chapter of the Interior Design Book

While the Amazon page for our new Interior Design textbook still doesn't have a "Look Inside" feature (I hear that's in the works), you CAN see a book preview on the Pearson site itself.

Go to this page on the Pearson site, and click the "Take a closer look" link on the set of tabs halfway down the page. That opens a presentation in which you can see the Table of Contents and the entire first chapter.

Enjoy!

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What's Coming in our November Projects?

The three projects for this month are inspired by the awesome classroom model produced in the Design Charette from SketchUp Basecamp last month. If you are a subscriber to our Projects of the Month (still on sale for $24.95 for the year), here's what you'll get next week:

Sundial

The charette model featured a "human sundial," which I didn't reproduce with an actual human, but instead modeled a more traditional, working sundial which tells the hour based on shadows.  You need to tell SketchUp where on Earth the sundial is located, then let SketchUp figure out the shadows.

Sundial Animation

Once you have your sundial, this project shows how to save scenes you can use to see its shadow based on the hour and season.

 

Translucent People

The people and trees in the classroom model from the charette are translucent silhouettes - a nice, artistic way to show entourage in a model. This project shows how to populate a model with silhouettes of poeple, and how to make them translucent.

To get these cool projects, and 33 more over the next 12 months, subscribe to our Projects of the Month.




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Design Charette from SketchUp Basecamp

A couple of weeks ago I went to Boulder to attend the 4th SketchUp Basecamp. SketchUp has hosted this gathering every couple of years, to get users and programmers together to discuss what's planned, what should be planned, what people want to see, and to see examples of how some SketchUp experts are using the software. There are always a bunch of us third-party product people running around as well, including writers like myself, trainers, rendering engine companies, dynamic component producers, and the like.

I plan to write up my impressions of the entire three days, but first I wanted to post about the design charette - the main activity on the third and final day (which ended around lunchtime).

"Charette" is a term I hadn't heard as an engineering student. It is generally used in architecture, when a group of students or designers need to come up with a problem-solving design in a short time. The Basecamp charette participants were told to form groups of about 10, and the assignment was to either design the classroom of the future, or some sort of organizational system for storing educational technology (tablets, printers, etc).

I ended up not participating myself (got involved in a couple of meetings instead), and I wasn't there when the results were presented (lunch meeting!). So I don't know how many groups opted for the organizer and how many did the classroom. But I do know who won, because I know most of the members of that group!

So imagine that you and some colleagues have TWO AND A HALF HOURS to come up with a design and get it into some sort of presentational format. Rather high pressure! But these are SketchUp experts, who are also fluent in LayOut, so great things were happening.

My friend Eric Schimelpfenig was on the winning team, and he sent me the winning model as well as the LayOut (presentation) file. Here are some shots of their design. For each image, click to view the entire thing - you might not get the full image in the blog format.

The overall view shows one enclosed classroom, surrounded by lots of landscaped outdoor space. (I assume this is located somewhere NOT being pounded by Hurricane Sandy, as we are right now...)

This view of the classroom, minus roof, shows the main room with circular desks and a loft area with beanbag (!) chairs. 

There aren't many (if any?) doors that close. A nice flower garden with paving stones is just off (and visible from) the main classroom.

Behind the classroom is an area with interactive signage.

Here's the greenhouse with solar roof:

And this is the open-air Council House.

Next to the Council House are some CSA-style vegetable plots, and the overlook features a human sundial.

Heading back into the main classroom area, there are some flat screens where the kids can see and chat wtih their fellow students across the world.

Have you noticed the translucent people? You can find them by searching for "silhouette" in the 3D Warehouse. These are components that always face the right way, and their black color was made translucent - an easy way to get a quick and dirty rendering without using any other programs.

Various views of this design, along with larger detailed views, were assembled into a LayOut document, which was then presented to the charette judges.

Congrats to the winning team! I'm not sure if the they had a team name, but here are the participants:

Zack Mertz

Rashad Al-Ahmadi

Mike Tadros

David Pillsbury

Jeffrey Orkin

Wyatt Thompson

Bertier Luyt

Yael Kadem

Eric Schimelfpenig

John Pacyga

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What's Coming in Our October Projects?

I love the project offerings for October - illusions, puzzles, and fractals (oh my!) If you're a subscriber to our Projects of the Month, (on sale for $24.95 this month!!) here's what you'll get in your inbox on October 15:

Ames Illusion

In the room below, which man is taller? If you're familiar with the famous Ames Illusion, you know that both men are identical. This project shows you how to build the room that makes this possible.

 


Shapes Puzzle, with Solution

One of last month's projects showed how to make a puzzle from simple shapes. This project shows you how to include the solution in the SketchUp model. So if you have a complicated puzzle and get stuck after placing a few pieces . . .

. . . you can "cheat" and look at the tab that shows the completed puzzle.

T-Square Fractal

You don't have to be a math geek to be turned on by fractals - they made cool art projects as well. In this project, you start with a simple square divided in two . . .

. . .  and use some copying, scaling, and rotating, to get this neat-looking pattern:

Go to Projects of the Month to sign up - our $24.95 sale for 36 projects is a fantastic October deal!

 

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What's Coming in Our September Projects?

Back-to-school isn't all work, it should be fun, too! So here are some playful projects to keep you or your kids amused, in between bouts of homework. Subscribe to our Projects of the Month.

Crossbar Illusion

Look at the yellow and blue crossbars within the orange frame below. How can the yellow bar be sitting above the blue bar, when both bars fit within the orange frame? This project shows how to build this crazy model.

 

Shapes Puzzle 

This project shows how to use lines and groups to make this puzzle. The 11-piece puzzle shown below is pretty easy to solve, but what about 100 pieces?

 

Rounded Box

Anyone can make a regular box in SketchUp, with sharp corners between sides. This project shows how to round corners, both along the vertical sides and around the top. It's not as straightforward as you might think - you'll need to use a neat trick!

 

 To get these and 11 more months of similar fun stuff, subscribe to our Projects of the Month.

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What's Coming in our August Projects?

Our projects this month include one two-parter and another where you use the very fun Inkscape. You can sign up to subscribe here - the year is still on sale at just $20!

Sky Sphere

Ever wanted to see your model surrounded by nothing but blue sky and some clouds? This project shows you how to make a sphere (more or less) painted with a sky image, that you can use to encompass a model.

Sky Sphere Animation

Part 2 of this project shows how to use the sky sphere model to create an animation of a model (an airplane in this case) flying through the sky.

Curvy Text in Inkscape

Text along a curve is tough to do in SketchUp, at least not without a lot of editing work. But it's easy to do in the free 2D drawing program, Inkscape. This project shows how to make a text string like this:

And import it into SketchUp as a graphic with a transparent background.

 

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Free Project: Getting Started in Tinkercad

SketchUp has paved the way for new 3D modeling applications, and one that I've recently run across is Tinkercad.  It's a FREE, web-based application that enables you to quickly model objects that can be produced on a 3D printer.

I recently wrote Getting Started in Tinkercad (PDF), a free project, ready for you to download and use. If you have kids home from camp, this is a great activity to keep their brains firing till school starts!

The project uses my usual-step-step method to work through this cute little boat:

 

The Tinkercad team has a similar boat printed out (I believe from a MakerBot):

 

Enjoy!!

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Sky Sphere Animation

I just finished writing the August projects that will go out in a couple of weeks (so ahead of schedule!), and here's the video of one of the projects:

The airplane in the model isn't really moving, of course. It is sitting inside a huge sphere painted with a sky image. It's a very fun project - sign up and you'll get the write-up on August 15.

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This Should Get Mark into the GTA!

Mark Eisenhardt is the director of technology at The Albany Academies, and clearly an avid SketchUp fan. He sent me the link to his 60-second application for this year's Google Teacher Academy in New York:




I asked Mark for some details about how he created this amazing video, which is done ENTIRELY in SketchUp:

This animation stems from a lesson I do in 6^th Grade where the students create a model of the Solar System as it was at the moment of their birth. They research planetary orbit radii to model the orbits, generate an image of planetary positions as of their “birth moment,” and then position planets that I scaled at those positions. The scale of the planets is not the same as the orbits because the model is not as fun if they were!

Each planet has a “detail” layer. The students import related 3D warehouse models and/or Planetary Factoid Images, that they create, onto those layers. They then disappear and appear the models/images as their animation tour progresses through their Birth Moment Solar System.

For my animation I added different styles to change the background and edge colors to enhance some of the models. I also added another 6^th grade project at the end where the students create a prism that has a 3D model of a constellation of their choice, usually their birth sign. This animation uses my example model of Orion – I attached the Google Icons to each of Orion’s major stars and used the CMP layers to change visibility during the animation.

As you might imagine, this model has a lot of layers:

And several styles that are used by the various scenes:

 This model uses a whole bunch of scenes (the tabs across the top of the screen shown below), for changing visibility of styles and layers This is how Mark "disappears" and "appears" various parts of the model as the animation focuses on a planet.

 

 This to me is the perfect integration of Google apps and features - hard to see how Mark doesn't get accepted with this. Good luck!!

(The only glitch could be that Google doesn't "count" SketchUp anymore as one of its products, not sure how that works as far as the Google Teacher Academy...)

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